Tag Archives: Black Lawrence Press

I just got back to NYC from AWP 2015 in lovely Minneapolis, MN. It was a great experience aside from the total lack of drinking water (the only options – the yellow water coming out of the drinking fountains or $3.50 small plastic bottles of water available if you had time to stand in a LONG line), the lack of decent food options (I ate a LOT of bananas and Cliff bars), the lack of reliable wireless either in the Book Fair or in the panel presentation rooms, and then of course, there were the immense lines for mediocre coffee. But all of these negatives are the fault of AWP and the Convention Center and not the attendees. The hundreds of small journals and big magazines, small presses and big University presses, the many, many poets, writers, and editors all made it worthwhile. I attended both as an editor for Black Lawrence Press and Sapling and as a panelist. My panel was Echoes of Displacement: Sound in Poetries of Diaspora. My fellow panelists presented on a diverse range of topics and most read their own work. Chris Santiago was the moderator and spoke about his own dissertation work on sound and the poetics of diaspora (it’s much more complex than that of course!); Shane McCrae (one of my favorite BLP poets) spoke about his own work and its evolution; Abdi Phenomenal Farah gave a gut-wrenching spoken word performance focused on his journey from the violence of Somalia to the U.S. And I talked about the Irish Diaspora, the “government of the tongue” and the sound of Irish poetry (both in Irish and English). I ended with an uncharacteristically (?) political poem about language loss and issues of identity.

BLP had a great off-site reading and party at Kieran’s Irish Pub where I was introduced to Two Gingers (yum!). Highlights for me were B.C. (Carter) Edwards, Bettina Judd, Shane McCrae, and Mark McKee. Of course, so many of the BLP writers and poets are wonderful that every one of the readings was stunningly good.

Overall, it was a great AWP and although I did miss seeing the sky and breathing outside air, Minneapolis has lots of intriguing skyways and some great Irish pubs.

In my “spare time” when I’m not at work or school or the library, I work as an editor for Black Lawrence Press. As part of this work, I read hundreds of fiction manuscripts. These mainly come in through BLP’s contests but also through an open reading period. I’ve read some stellar work, some mediocre work, and some incredibly shoddy work. What always gets me though is when writers don’t take the time to check basics like formatting (what’s with all the single-spaced mss?), spelling, basic punctuation and grammar, and little nit-picky things – keeping a character’s named spelled the same way consistently, knowing basic geographical details of the city where a story is based, I could go on but…Reading this I feel I’m being one of those awful cranky-pants editors who forgets that that manuscript is someone’s hard-fought work. I guess my point is: if you DO love your work enough to send it out into the world, why not love it enough to polish it up? And why not also read the basic submission guidelines for the press you’re submitting to? {And yes, I know that last sentence I just wrote is in dire need of a strong editorial hand.} Given all the above, as I said, I’ve also come across some truly stellar work. Jon Chopan’s Pulled from the River, TJ Beitelman’s John the Revelator, and a stunning short story, Blood, by Matthew Cheney that’s one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve read in ages. You can read Blood here: http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=stories&story_id=81 where it was first published in 2006. You can also read it in his short story collection coming out on Black Lawrence Press at some point in the hopefully not too distant future (print publishing being the slow moving beast that it is). So I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s a LOT of great writing out there and there could be more if writers would take better care of their work – clean it up, care about word choices, read & learn from more great writers, and by all means: double-space those manuscripts. I treat all manuscripts with equal respect and I value the work every writer is attempting but I won’t go blind for anybody’s work.

In the midst of mid-terms in my PhD program, I’ve decided what with all that spare time I have, to sign up for another year’s National Novel Writing Month. I’ve done this process four times with varying results. 3 out of four, I’ve completed a “novel” or at least the required word count. One of those novels went around to agents a bit and now sits sadly on my hard drive waiting to be revisited. A friend asked if I thought “that whole writing a novel in a month” was a waste of time. I’d argue that no writing is a waste of time (aside from some “academic” writing or that FB posting I do when I should be doing other things). That said, whether or not I’ll “do” anything with the novel I plan to write this November isn’t really the point. It’s the writing itself that’s important. One year, I wrote the first half on a very long flight, wrote a few pages over Thanksgiving and finished it up on the flight back to NYC. This year I’ll try to find time by getting up earlier, going to bed later, and cutting back on my already limited social life. Final papers for the fall grad school semester will be looming and likely, too many manuscripts to read for Black Lawrence Press but all the same, I will get a first draft of a new novel done. And maybe I’ll even post part of it here if & when I remember that I have a blog.